Alternative splicing and climate-resilient crops

Abstract

Abiotic stress severely restricts plant growth and crop yield, potentially impacting food security during climate shifts. Alternative splicing (AS), a widely conserved gene regulatory mechanism tightly coupled to transcription, impacts stress responses by altering protein levels and function. Such molecular plasticity supports rapid environmental responses. Advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies have enabled genome-wide AS profiling, revealing that abiotic stresses extensively reshape splicing landscapes, affecting transcripts encoding heat shock transcription factors, calcium signaling components, and splicing regulators. Here, we synthesize current knowledge on plant AS mechanisms, advances in AS detection, and stress-induced AS regulation under temperature fluctuations, drought, and salinity. We further discuss prospects for manipulating AS in breeding stress-resistant crops, providing a paradigm for genetic improvement with relevance beyond stress resistance.

Keywords: abiotic stress; alternative splicing; molecular breeding; sQTL; splicing factor; transcriptome.